Our Management

Andrew is co-founder and Director of Newton Europe. Since 2001, he has overseen Newton’s continual 35% annual growth while leading and delivering award-winning improvement programmes.

He is particularly proud of winning the National Business Award’s ‘Small to Medium Sized Business of the Year’ and ‘Business Enabler of the Year’, as well as all the incredible achievements of the Newton team and clients over the years.

He is passionate about making Newton the very best place to work, and delivering ever more value to clients. He remains active across the business, from leading training, to working hands-on with clients to ensure the sustainable delivery of transformation programmes.

Andrew’s interest in delivering value through operations started when he studied Manufacturing and Management as a post-graduate at Cambridge University. When not working or with his family he can be found skiing, surfing or mountain biking on the Malvern Hills, where he lives.

James Frost - Chief Finance Officer

James has considerable board-level experience in areas such as profitability management, cost control and efficiency programmes, working capital control, management reporting development, and systems integration and implementation. He leads the internal management of the business and provides commercial expertise and support to consultants in the rapid and transparent delivery of improved financial performance for our clients.

Before joining Newton, James worked for Dyson where he gained expertise in commercial, operational and manufacturing finance. Previously, he was Group Finance Director during the restructuring and subsequent £100m sale in 2006 of a leading international flooring business, and also held a number of senior finance positions at Alliance UniChem plc, the FTSE 100 European healthcare and pharmaceutical business. Here he worked in a range of established, start-up and newly acquired businesses, including four years as Finance Director of the £2.5bn turnover UK wholesale division, and later within Alliance UniChem's international retail division.

Kevin Jones – Director

Director and founder of Newton Europe, Kevin is responsible for leading and developing Newton's Defence sector. He specialises in identifying operational improvement in cost, delivery & quality across design, manufacturing, assembly, test and commissioning, acceptance, in service and MRO.

A Cambridge University engineering graduate, Kevin moved to the United States in the mid 1990's to assist two multi-national paper manufacturers achieve million pound performance improvements. Since then, he has been influential in leading projects across a range of manufacturing sectors, including chemicals and food and packaging.

In recent years, Kevin has helped Newton's defence clients with both business challenges and practical problems, working in dockyards and factories to increase productivity and reduce programme cost and duration.

Tom Wedgwood - Director

Director and founder of Newton Europe, Tom is responsible for leading and developing the company's innovative business approach, intellectual property and best practice. Directly involved in reviewing and delivering all major projects to achieve the best operational, financial and quality performance improvements, Tom specialises in the high volume manufacturing sector, although he also works with some of the world's most successful services, and wholesale and retail companies. Tom coordinates activities with private equity clients, overseeing due diligence and upside work and delivering profit improvements within portfolio companies.

Tom was awarded the Institute of Civil Engineering Queen's Jubilee Scholarship at Cambridge University and won the Roscoe Prize for achieving the top degree of his year. Following Cambridge, he worked as a civil engineer for Ove Arup in Zimbabwe, Australia and London. He specialised in manufacturing consulting as part of an international group working with Acordis, McVities, Kimberly-Clark and GlaxoSmithKline before founding Newton in 2001.

Steven Phillips – Director

Steven has been instrumental in growing the Local Government sector, which he is now responsible for managing and developing. He is currently leading teams across a number of councils, delivering sustainable financial efficiencies and better outcomes for customers. He is also involved in the development of much of Newton's public sector methodology.

Steven has worked with over 300 local authorities over the past 10 years, and has led some of Europe's biggest public sector performance focused transformational change programmes. Steven is a specialist in performance and information management, improvement and business change.

Christian Hansen - Sector Head

Christian is head of Newton's Business and Financial Services practice, and has led the growth of this sector, including the development of methodology and innovative thinking in operational excellence. He also applies this to corporate services, customer services, contact centres, field operations and back office support functions across wider sectors.

He has previously overseen a number of programmes which have delivered multi-million pound savings for clients across business services, health and social care, defence, consumer and industrials.

Diane Law - Head of Learning & Development

At Newton we support every individual in achieving their potential – through a variety of approaches including on-the-job experience, coaching and mentoring, self-guided learning, networking and hands-on courses.

With 20 years’ experience in consulting, organisational development and change management, Diane joined Newton in 2013 to establish an innovative and state-of-the-art Learning and Development programme. Her background in Psychology and Business Management has given her insights into motivation, behaviour, relationships and team dynamics, as well at the skills to design, develop and implement adult learning programmes. Diane has developed and implemented new approaches and frameworks for learning. Her focus is very much on providing the support, processes and infrastructure to ensure people develop the skills, knowledge, behaviours and experience to meet their daily challenges and their longer term growth. This covers both the Newton methodology as well as the essential interpersonal skills.

Diane has a psychology degree (University of Western Ontario, Canada) and an MBA from Warwick Business School. She is qualified in psychometric tools and a member of CIPD, ILP and BILD.

John D'Arcy - Sector Head

John joined Newton in 2004 and is responsible for developing Newton's private equity relationships and leading the delivery of Newton's Portfolio Improvement Programmes. He has delivered multi-million improvements in operations and supply chain for organisations across a range of sectors and leads large scale due diligence engagements

John graduated from Cambridge University with a degree in Mathematics and Management Studies.

Nick Barlow - Sector Head

Nick joined Newton in 2008 and currently leads the company's Healthcare sector, responsible for managing Newton's largest NHS clients. He has repeatedly delivered successful improvement programmes that have not only saved Trusts several millions of pounds, but also greatly enhanced both employee culture and patient care. Nick leads on the development of Newton's Healthcare methodology and is central to the training and internal development of the team. His work challenging the status quo and the assumption that quality and cost are mutually exclusive has led to ground-breaking, ongoing cultural change across the healthcare industry.

Paul Harvey - Sector Head

Paul has led the development of Newton’s large scale programme delivery within manufacturing and retail clients and heads the Grocery sector. Since 2006, Paul has developed Newton's unique capability to deliver multi-million pound results across the sector and has led Newton and client teams to deliver exceptional results, with high profile clients such as Nissan, Asda, Coca-Cola and Findus.

A University of Bath Mechanical Engineering graduate, Paul works across Newton to develop the capability to better integrate supply chains into retailers, creating collaborative partnerships with suppliers.

Phil Sunley - Sector Head

As the Head of Newton's Defence and Aerospace sector Phil manages a number of high profile clients including BAE Systems, Babcock Marine and Rolls Royce. He has particular knowledge and experience in Maritime build, test and commissioning.

Prior to joining Newton Phil was Operations Manager for a heating components manufacturer with a £100M turnover, with responsibility for manufacturing, engineering and procurement. During this time he led the operations arm of a business transformation program with savings of £3.2M in the first year.

Phil has postgraduate academic qualifications in Engineering Management, Business Administration and Leadership, as well as being Association of Project Management (APMP) qualified.

Richard Graham – Sector Head

Richard joined in 2007 and currently leads Newton’s operations in the United States. He has a wealth of experience managing and delivering multi-million pound operational improvement programs across the Transportation, Defense, Healthcare, Industrial and Consumer sectors. Before transferring to the United States he headed Newton’s Transport and Infrastructure sector in the UK for three years.

Richard has an outstanding academic background, holds a first class honors degree in Mechanical Engineering from Oxford University and was previously an Officer in the British Army.

Steve Knight - Sector Head

Steve has worked with Newton for 12 years, leading large scale transformation programmes across health and social care, and heading up Newton’s integration offering.

With experience working in partnership with acute and community providers, and local authorities, Steve has managed the design, delivery and implementation of change programmes which have delivered up to £32m in annualised savings.

Steve recently led a national piece of work commissioned by the LGA to quantify efficiency opportunities and challenges of health and social care integration.